>_____<;;

“Well that doesn’t fix it!” Victoria paced around underneath the dead lights panicky. “These freaking Shadows are still in our house and we won’t be able to find them without light!”

“Just open the curtains or something; shouldn’t be that hard,” Namjoo muttered, “haven’t you heard of saving electricity?”

“We’re not saving it,” Victoria stated matter-of-factly before turning to eye Chorong, who was currently pacing around frustrated in her own world, “it got killed on us!”

“Well,” Chorong turned to Victoria, “not everyone knows how to control their powers on the first try. You made a bigger mess than either of us upon tapping into their gem!”

Victoria snorted and put her hand on her hips, “What?”

“Shattered glass, broken picture frames, and you even swung a chair out at me.” Chorong pointed out.

“I told you the last one was an accident.”

“Hello!” Namjoo raised her voice so that she could scream over theirs. She was in the living room by one of the windows, “Instead of you two arguing, why can’t we open the freaking curtains together?! The sun hasn’t gone down yet, we haven’t got all day.” She glanced around before asking, “Have you counted the number of windows we have in this house?”

Victoria groaned.

“Why don’t you guys attack from one area, opening all the curtains will help the Shadows spread out, which will weaken your defense,” Woohyun suggested.

“Well, if you’re so smart, why don’t you help us instead of just standing there!?” Chorong raised her voice at him.

“Whoa,” he said sarcastically.

“Just joking,” Chorong patted his shoulder, “can’t have some fun with me?”

Woohyun snorted at her before following her into the sitting room, which had more space, and less valuable objects that could be broken and easily replaced.

“Namjoo, window,” Victoria ordered.

She shot her a stare before moving over to the window beside the couch and sprung the window curtain open.

“Now what?” Namjoo asked staring at the window and the light it casted into the room.

The dark Shadow appeared so fast and lurched out that Namjoo screamed in surprise as she hurled toward the floor, throwing her arm out in defense. When she landed against the floor she heard Victoria’s voice bellowing throughout the room. And when she looked up she saw that the curtain had caught fire.

“Water! Go get water!”

Upon the order, Namjoo rushed up to her feet, but was stopped by Chorong.

“Hold on,” Chorong said, “I think the fire’s attracting them to it.”

Namjoo turned around to watch the Shadows move toward the fire one by one and heard them growl in pain before they popped and disappeared.

“Ok…so that worked,” Namjoo nodded confused.

“Water, hurry before you burn down the house!” Victoria urged.

“Ok, ok!” Namjoo muttered walking into the kitchen.

Victoria turned away from the sight of dying Shadows and covered her ears. It was an awful thing to listen to and she was sure she’d get a nightmare from it.

“Hurry, hurry!” Victoria beckoned when she was sure the last of them had died off.

She watched her sister toss the bowl of water at the curtain, which immediately demolished the fire.

“Whew!” Chorong sighed in relief. “Ok, now that that’s over, light. How do I make that come back on? Can we just go fix the circuit breaker?”

Victoria rolled her eyes, “Let me go check.”

>_____<;;

Chorong watched Victoria walk off and turned to take a glance at Woohyun who was observing the damage the fire had left on the curtain. She wasn’t ready to bid farewell. It was the one fear in her that kept her from comfortably approaching him.

Turning around she let her eyes meet the ground. Bidding him farewell for the second time was the last thing she wanted to do. Her heart began to ache upon the thought and she watched the lights flicker back to life.

From behind she heard Namjoo pacing back and forth restlessly. She seemed to be muttering something to herself before hastily screaming her name. But Chorong reacted too late. The Shadow’s reflection hovered off the ground and she shot her head up to see it coming for her. opened in horror when she caught sight of the darkness the Shadow brought with it. Chorong wasn’t ready to think about what would happen if it touched her, but before it did she felt her body land against the ground knocking her head into a confused frenzy.

Pain warped through her body and quickly spread from her neck to her arms locking her into a state of confusion. A moan seeped from her lips as she slowly turned herself over to see the Shadow scorch Woohyun before Namjoo screamed and flung her hand out. Something bright and circular forced the Shadow into the wall where it disappeared, the fire leaving behind a black burnt mark.

A tear ran out from Chorong’s eye and quickly slid down her cheek when Woohyun landed on the ground next to her. Namjoo covered with her hands at a gasp. Another second later, Victoria was shouting in the background the second she returned from the basement which was connected to the kitchen. Everything had happened so fast Chorong hadn’t been able to catch it all.

“No!!” Chorong screamed throwing herself up despite the pain. “No!”

Woohyun let out a cry and coughed drily, but he couldn’t move. He just lie there useless, helpless. Tears roamed Chorong’s eyes when she saw the hundred cuts on his back, the blood seeping through his shirt. A remorseful sob flew through her lips before she reached for him and pulled him onto her lap. Her mind wasn’t working, she couldn’t think. Chorong only shook her head while her chest burst in and out. Her heart was bursting again and again. The sobs crazily filled the room.  

Chorong clutched her hand around his arm, but when she did so, her fingers ended up digging into her palm.

“Chorong…” Victoria whispered from above.

And when Chorong turned to look, she saw that he was already starting to fade.

“Don’t leave me,” Chorong begged. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

There was nothing she could say, nothing else she could think of to say.

“Live…for me,” his voice cracked upon the pain. “Let go of your guilt…it belongs to them…not you.” Chorong felt him grip her arm before the strength slowly died and she thought of his disappearing hand, which deepened her sobs.

“It’s not fair…”

He smiled up at her and Chorong suddenly thought that if he was alive, the two of them would have probably dated and married. The sudden thought burned her heart even more and she cried harder upon the realization of what had been possible, but turned impossible.

“Friends…remember each other, right?” he asked weakly.

Chorong nodded with a baby sob suddenly knowing how she wanted to bid her farewell now. Big teardrops fell from her eye when she leaned toward his disappearing figure.

“I love you,” she whispered and only saw him smile as she leaned in to hug him tighter, but a second later she ended up hugging only herself as her entire figure bent over. “It’s not fair…Woohyun!”

A high pitched scream from her deafened her sister’s ears, but none of them moved from spot even when the lights flickered repeatedly.

>_____<;;

It was too sad a sight. Namjoo felt half of her heart ache in sympathy for Chorong, but she couldn’t feel her pain. Frustration surpassed through her when she suddenly thought of how heartless she was.

“Namjoo,” Victoria called out for her.

“I want to be alone,” Namjoo muttered before turning to walk out the door.

She heard Victoria start after her, but stopped upon Chorong’s harder cries. Namjoo listened to the door close behind her and she stopped at the first doorstep. Her eyes were watery, but she didn’t know who she crying for. For Chorong’s lost friend, because she felt sorry for everything or just because of the fact that she was heartless. She felt suffocated in the house, she couldn’t stand it.

Grief…everything was nothing, but grief. How long was her family doomed to grieve? Who else would they end up grieving for?

>_____<;;

Victoria paced back and forth in front of the door. The sun had gone down, two hours had passed, and Namjoo still hadn’t returned. Chorong had locked herself in her room and it wasn’t like Victoria could tend to her right now. It suddenly felt like pacing back and forth was all she was doing since yesterday.

She sighed again and picked up the phone to call Chanyeol, her last resort.

>_____<;;

“She was home two hours ago, but she ran back out…actually walked out,” Victoria corrected, “she said she wanted some air. Do you know where she goes?”

“I checked around all evening.”

Victoria let out a helpless sigh, “Look, to be honest, I don’t know a lot about Namjoo. If you could bring her back, I’d be really thankful.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Chanyeol assured. “She’ll be ok.”

“I know she will,” Victoria replied, “thanks.”

After he hung up he started up his car again. At least Namjoo hadn’t done anything…to herself. Chanyeol drove around casual spots before he stopped his car upon noticing a figure sitting by the river adjacent to the bridge. Chanyeol squinted his eyes to better see the figure before he stepped out of his car.

>_____<;;

Namjoo zeroed her eyes in on the sparkles the black waters were creating. When she eventually grew bored of it she tilted her head to look up at the night sky and suddenly wondered if Luhan had gone back up there. If so, what was he doing? Spying on her?

“Namjoo!” someone shouted.

She turned caught off guard by the voice and immediately stood. Who the heck would be looking for her? Before she could answer her own question she felt herself lurch forward when he grabbed her arm.

“Where the hell have you been!?” Chanyeol interrogated loudly. “I was looking for you all day!”

“And what are you doing here?” Namjoo pulled her arm back. “Didn’t I tell you to leave me alone?”

She turned to walk away, but he followed insistently.

“Namjoo,” he called again and again, but she ignored him completely. Chanyeol ran ahead tired of playing cat and mouse, and turned to stop in front of her forcing her to come to an unwilling halt. “When someone calls you, you stop to listen.”

“I’m listening,” she said childishly keeping her eyes off him.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, “for saying those things to you. When your sister called and said you were missing, I was worried. I didn’t want what I said to be the last thing I would say to you…if something happened.”

She lightly gritted her teeth and said, “I’m not angry at you,” before trying to walk off again, but he was smart enough to walk in the direction she was headed, forcing her to walk against him.

“Lets go home, I’ll take you home,” Chanyeol hugged her.

“I don’t want to go home,” Namjoo muttered against his shoulder.

“My home then,” he said.

And Namjoo hated herself even more for having a soft spot for him no matter what happened. Full of every negative energy possible, she clamped her lips shut, and decided to say no more.  

>_____<;;

Chanyeol listened to the phone ring once before Victoria quickly picked up, “Did you find her?”

“Yea,” he spoke quietly into the receiver and turned take a glance at Namjoo, who was curled up on his bed asleep. “She’s with me. Is it alright if she stays here for the night?”

“Oh…” Victoria sounded reluctant, a little disappointed, but gave in. “Yea, that’s fine. Return her in the morning.”

“I will,” he promised before hanging up.

The full moon was glowing in through the window across from the bed casting a luminous glow on her. Chanyeol sat down on the bed and reached his hand out to run a finger sleekly across her cheek.

They had been on and off the past couple of years. Namjoo left him repeatedly, for whatever reason he didn’t know. Namjoo never made anything clear to him, and at one point in time he was suspicious of her having an affair, but that turned out negative. Then she continuously left only to come back again and again.

Chanyeol couldn’t figure out what exactly it was that she wanted from him. Whether she was just confused and couldn’t decide, he wasn’t certain, but he knew he’d stay with her no matter the circumstances.

Lying down beside her he turned so that he could put his arms around her to hug her close.

>_____<;;

After the phone call, Victoria made sure to lock the front door and headed upstairs. She couldn’t help herself, but stop in front of Chorong’s door to hear her weep continuously. Losing a good friend twice was something she hoped she would never have to experience. And she felt sincerely sorry for Chorong. Victoria wished there was more she could do than give Chorong the space she needed at the moment, but there was nothing else she could do. 

>_____<;;

Chorong easily wept as she ran her hands over the pictures of Woohyun she’d treasured so well over the last 7 years. Why Woohyun had to leave her twice didn’t make sense, nor was it fair, but if he asked her to leave the guilt behind she would do as he asked. She wanted his spirit to rest in peace.

Life would move on, it definitely would, but Chorong wanted to put herself in a standstill…just for a while. For a while more she wanted to remember her precious friend. She wanted to keep him to herself and this memory of meeting him again.

For the whole night, she cried and cried. She had to cry out everything she had before she would feel better. Chorong wanted to do the things Woohyun would have done if he were alive. She’d keep living the hopes taken away from him, for him…forever herself.

If she recalled correctly, he had wanted to help young students realize their dreams and become good people. A teacher, Woohyun had wanted to become a teacher.

Half the night was spent sticking his pictures up on the wall beside her bed. She barely slept an hour before she was up drinking a cup of coffee and searching the net for any student teaching information. Chorong felt determined for once. She had worked for a law firm as a secretary for the past year and hadn’t really enjoyed it even when the pay was plentiful. The fact that Woohyun had come to her after the things told to her by grandma would only mean she was destined to help others in whatever way she could.

“You’re up early,” Victoria greeted leaning against the doorway.

Chorong glanced up from the table to look at her and smiled, “Job searching.”

“Job searching?” Victoria walked over to take the seat beside her. “And what are you going to do?”

“Teacher, I want to be a teacher.”

Victoria raised her brows surprised. “That’s far from what you’re doing now.”

“Life’s too short to be doing something I don’t like,” Chorong said turning to stare at the screen of her laptop, “I’m not as depressed as you think I am.” Then she turned to Victoria and felt bitter tears well up, “I’ll be ok.”

“I know you will,” Victoria smiled before running her hand over Chorong’s head comfortingly.